Dr. Jaime Suchlicki heads the University of Miami Institute for Cuba and Cuban American Studies. These days he has been fielding plenty of phone calls about how to assess the rumours of Fidel Castro’s death or looming death. Suchlicki maintains that the Cuban Government will be the sole source of Castro’s death notice. He says until certain actions take place all the talk around Miami is just that, talk. He also adds that Hugo Chavez is not a creditable source about Fidel’s condition.

Suchlicki gave me a checklist of events that will lead up to the announcement of Castro’s death. They are:

Army troops at the ready in and around Havana

Police posted throughout the capital city

Funeral music on the radio

Regular TV programming suspended

and then the Government announcement or statement from Raul Castro.

Even if you do not speak much Spanish you can check out several powerful Cuban Radio Station. You best bet are stations on 890, 900, or 910kc on the AM dial. Two of the three are “Radio Progresso” and they boom into Miami especially in the morning and late afternoon.

“Those people you can’t trust for nothing, you can’t trust those people,” Cuban Exile Manuel Coll told me. Coll might be absolutly right but unfortunatly in this case the Castro government hold all the Fidel Castro death cards.